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Parents, Children and Family Relationship Centres: What's Working?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2013

Thea Brown  and
Alan Campbell
Thea Brown
Affiliation:
Monash University, Victoria
Alan Campbell*
Affiliation:
Anglicare WA and University of South Australia
*
address for correspondence: Dr Alan Campbell, Anglicare WA, 23 Adelaide Terrace, East Perth, Western Australia, 6004Alan.campbell@anglicarewa.org.au
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Abstract

This article reports on a study of parents’ and children's responses to the service they received at two Family Relationship Centres (FRCs) in Perth, Western Australia. Family members who had attended either the Mandurah or Joondalup FRCs sponsored by AnglicareWA between 2010 and 2012 were invited to complete a survey that asked them for their views on the services they had received. A total of 74 parents, representing 139 children, completed the survey. Findings indicated significant satisfaction with the two-hour group session that introduces the work of the FRCs, with parents reporting they could remember the main messages from the session. A surprising finding, and one that has not been reported elsewhere, is that parents expressed an unwillingness to invite their own children to participate in the work of the Centres, although the majority of the respondents agreed in principle that children should take part. The implications of this finding are briefly discussed.

Keywords

Family Relationship Centresparentschildrenparticipationservices
Type
Articles
Information
Children Australia , Volume 38 , Special Issue 4: A SPECIAL ISSUE ON INTERNATIONAL FAMILY MOBILITY (AND THE BROADER FAMILY LAW CONTEXT) , December 2013 , pp. 192 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2013 

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